We’re Now Cognitive Class

Today, we’re renaming our site to Cognitive Class in order to better embody our focus on Data Science and Cognitive Computing.

One has been called “the sexiest profession of the 21st century” and the other is the biggest revolution in the world of computing since the invention of the Turing Machine.

A brief history of Cognitive Class

When we – a small group of IBMers – first launched this volunteer initiative back in 2010, we chose to call the site DB2 University. Our goal at the time was to provide online data education and literacy free of charge. Our goal hasn’t changed; our name, implementation, and the industry itself have.

Most of our team had worked on DB2 at IBM and so we launched the site with a handful of courses related to SQL and specifically IBM DB2. Despite the limited amount of content at the time, we quickly managed to attract the attention of many professionals and students.

As the number of registrants grew, we quickly realized that our mission for the site would be to democratize learning beyond the scope of a single product.

Seven years ago our students were expressing interest in learning not just about databases but also about this hot new thing called Big Data. Our own team’s scope at IBM expanded to include emerging technologies in the cloud and analytics space. Big Data very much included. So in 2011, we renamed DB2 University to Big Data University.

We kept that name for six years and it has served us well. Our Big Data courses are extremely popular and the site has grown to just shy of 700,000 learners worldwide.

Our catalog expanded considerably and, despite our name, the site became an education and skill building tool for more than just Big Data. For Data Science at first, and in more recent times, for Cognitive Computing as well. (By the way, the latter is IBM’s favorite terminology for technologies that include, but are not limited, to Artifical Intelligence.)

Data Science and Cognitive Computing are the future

Our industry never sits still. Teaching data analytics today is no longer just about relational databases. And it’s no longer about Big Data alone either.

Those two topics remain foundational, but the future of data insight that serves human and business needs lies in Data Science and Cognitive Computing.

As we go about creating more and more content that satisfies your demands for future-proof skills, we decided to double down on them. And with this new focus in mind, we had to pick a better name to represent our aim. We chose Cognitive Class.

The domain is a .ai to further reinforce what we are all about.

What it means for you

Realistically, not much should change for you in terms of logistics. Our emails will come from Cognitive Class rather than BDU. Your account will still work. The courses you’re enrolled in and completed will still be there. You keep your certificates and badges. (However, if you run into any issue, please use our Support tab to open a ticket with us.)

You can expect us to release many new courses on hot topics within our industry. Think machine learning, deep learning, AI, NLP, chatbots, blockchain, and so on.

We look forward to continuing to provide you with the indispensable skills you need to tackle the problems of the future. Please stay tuned. 🙂

PS: If you’re interested in becoming a course author, feel free to contact us. If you are a business or academic institution interested in deploying your own Cognitive Class, reach us via the Business page.

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Is it possible to
* get the Certificates with the old name "Big Data University" ?
* provide a legacy Link to bigdatauniversity.com, which is not redirected to cognitiveclass.ai

Reasons:
* The term "cognitive computing" is ca. factor 100 less common than "Big Data" (Google Trends 02.06.2017)
* The Google Trends show *none* Interest in "cognitive computing" in my home country Germany during the last 5 yerars
* Not all students are working with AI / cognitive computing. My focus is to become a "data engineer", not a "data scientist".
* It sounds dubious to change the University Name on the certificate *after* the certification was completed. I have downloaded my certificate for one course in 2 different versions.
* The badges still show "Big Data University"

Jan_DE - I agree with you! From a professional skills marketability perspective, I thought the name "Big Data University" was right on the nose and was disappointed by the name change. If you think about it, BIG DATA UNIVERSITY lines up well with other university terms (e.g., Big Ten Conference in NCAA sports). I thought it was a clever branding decision by IBM. Big Data and Data Science are areas of focus large enough to support themselves. Having the those lumped in under the unfamiliar term "cognitive", very much hides an otherwise popular, trending field. BIG DATA UNIVERSITY excites (i.e., I'm going off to college), while COGNITIVE CLASS makes one think of having to "go to class". I think it would be better if CognitiveClass.ai had links to what was bigdatauniversity.

Sir, one other problem is that the certificates of BDU are not recognized in CC any more. The issueing of the corresponding badge is not triggered automatically any more. For example Predictive Modeling Fundamentals I (DS101EN) has changed to course code PA0101EN . I raised a support ticket but got no reply any more. Could you please organize?

Hi, First thank you very much for offering all these very useful courses. It will be handy if you can show a tick mark or something similar on completed courses. With a number of courses with similar names we have to go to each course and check if we completed it already. Thank you.

Hi there. I'm brand a brand new use. I'm unfamiliar with and care very little about the name change. I realize it is the opposite case seasoned users and you have to explain it well, but I did not at all enjoy this review of cognitive class labs. For a newbie it was ultra confusing and annoying and it has me thinking I'm in the wrong lab, if there even is such a thing.

For one, I couldn't find any links or direction to a workbench or Cognitive Class Labs. I had to Google it. When logged in, the training video was not relating to what I have on my cc lab dashboard . The video tells me that the top links under "find data" should be "IBM Analytics Exchange" and "Open Data". Mine says "manage data" and gives me the options "My Blockchain" and "My data" . I still think I'm maybe in a lab for a different class, but see no indication that this lab is for any one specific class.

Lastly, I understand needing the name change but I'm an I do NOT like this name . It's a mouthful and after watching that video, really hard on the ears . I swear if he said "Cognitive-Class-Labs" one more time......